Miss You In The Morning
by Eternal Love Song
Summary: Short snap shots of grief and mourning. [Izuku x Mina] [Established relationship, angst, aged up characters] Based on Tears of Acid by DominoMags.
1. Miss You This Morning

The sunlight peeked through an opening in the curtain, slowly growing brighter and luring her into the waking world sooner than she was ready. Izuku always told her that she check them before bed and she always forgot. Usually, he would do it for her. That was probably why she never got it in her head to do it herself. She knew that she could rely on him.

 _"Wake up, love."_

It was a whisper as soft as butterfly kisses pressed to her eyelids, as gentle as his fingers stroking her cheeks, as warm as his arms wrapped around her in the night.

"Not yet," Mina whispered. She pressed her eyes closed more tightly and curled into a bed, not ready to leave the sweetness of her dream. She tried to block out the small sunbeam calling out for her attention. "Just a little longer."

She could hear the soft rumble of his laugh. He was always amused by her antics in the morning. That was why he took the time out out of his day to wake her up when the alarm clock could do the same job. That was why he would press his nose into her neck to nuzzle her, why he would whisper words of love to coax her awake, why he would…

The wind blew the curtains open, allowing the full force of the sunlight to hit her. Her eyes were still closed, but the last vestige of her dream was lost. Slowly, reluctantly, wanting desperately to stave off the truth, she opened her eyes.

Izuku's shirt was clutched tightly in her hand and she immediately buried her eyes, and her tears, in the soft fabric. She stayed as still as she could, as still as Izuku had been that last day, afraid to feel the cold sheets that surrounded her. Her mind was playing tricks on her again. Every whisper was his voice, his touch, his kiss, as gentle as he ever was with her and twice as ephemeral.

Finally, the tears turned into sobs. Heavy, heaving breaths, almost screams, as she vented her misery.

"Izuku." The sound was ripped out of her. "Izuku. Izuku! IZUKU!" She couldn't do anything but repeat his name, pleading, hoping that somehow such an action would summon him from the grave and back to her side.

But it didn't.

It wouldn't. No matter how desperately she wanted, _needed_ , him to return to her side, she was still alone. She was still here and he was never coming back.

He couldn't come back.

And Mina was left clutching desperately to the things he left behind.


	2. Put On A Happy Face

_"With a smiling face…"_

Mina stared into the mirror. There were bags under her eyes from hours of lost sleep. She had a hollow look in her eyes. She looked haunted. She felt haunted too. She felt the stares of the picture around the room. Like a weight pressing down on her, driving her further and further into the ground where he was waiting for her…

 _"I am here!"_

She pinched her cheeks to snap herself out of it. She could keep doing this. She made a promise and she had to fulfill it.

She put her fingers to the sides of her mouth, forcing them up in a smile.

 _"You have the smile down… You'll make me proud."_

This used to be easy for her. She used to smile as easily as she breathed. She used to laugh and grin and be happy. She used to get out of bed and see her friends. She used to have someone around her that made her smile.

 _"You have such a pretty smile."_

She tried to freeze herself in place. The smile was awkward and forced, but it was there. She moved her hands away from her face. The gleam of her engagement ring called to her from the counter, begging for attention. A picture behind her, one of her arms wrapped around Izuku, seemed to grow larger the longer she tried not to look directly at it.

Tears began to spill down her face. There was nothing to smile about anymore. No one to life her up when she was down. No one to make her laugh, or take her hand when she needed help standing, or hold her when she thought she was going to fall apart.

 _"I trust you."_

But that was the point, right? A hero has to smile for everyone that can't? A hero has to smile so that everyone knows that everything would be okay. Even if it wasn't okay. Even if nothing would ever be okay. A hero… has to smile.

"You'll make me proud."

Her face was streaked with tears. Her smile was fragile and wobbly. It wouldn't inspire confidence or joy. No one would look at this smile and see a hero. But it was there! It was hers! She could hold this smile on her face despite everything in the world trying to rip it away from her.

"Are you still proud of me, Izuku?"


	3. Monster Looming Before Me

_There was a monster looming over her._

Mina spent most of her days safely hidden in her room, wrapped up in her blanket and trying to remember the days when she was fearless. Sleep was her plan for most days and dreams were her hope. In dreams, she could see him. She could hold his hand and hear his voice. She could touch him and kiss him. In dreams, they could still be together and she didn't have to think about empty beds, staring portraits on the wall, or the teasing echoes of his voice.

In nightmares she had to watch him die. It was a fitting price, she thought, if she was going to use her dreams as a way to escape, to cheat reality, then it was only fitting that she be punished for it.

 _It was so tall it nearly reached the ceiling and he never moved from it's sentinel post. It spent all it's days watching her. Silently daring her to come near it._

She avoided it like the plague. Most days she tried not to even look at it. If she never left her room, she would never have to acknowledge it's presence. If she spent all her time asleep, she would never have to worry about such silly things as monsters and madness.

For a while she spent hours staring at the picture on her walls. Sometimes she would sob so hard it made her throat ache and her head throb until she gave up and cried herself to sleep. Sometimes she would turn the pictures around so that she couldn't see them and spend hours berating herself for being a coward, for trying to hide from the memories simply because they were a little sad,and she turned them back around once she began to feel lonely. These pictures were all she had left and she couldn't really bare to think they might somehow disappear.

Sometimes she thought he might still come home somehow, but those thoughts always left her a sobbing mess, sitting at the feet of her monster and silently begging it to just let Izuku come home.

But that wasn't how things worked. If she wanted to see Izuku (she'd never see him again) she had to go where he was. She knew where he was, after all. Waiting for her to come see him and show off that she was still the hero he'd thought she was.

She wasn't that hero.

Mina was a mess that slept all day and cried when she tried to small and avoided looking at one corner of her apartment because she was afraid.

And in some ways the monster was protecting her, keeping anyone else from getting to her. It helped her hide.

She didn't know when this anxiety had over taken her. When she let her grief swallow her whole. Would Izuku be ashamed of her? Would he be ashamed to see her acting this way?

No. No, he wouldn't see her like that. He would tell her to do her best. He would say that it was going to be okay. Izuku would tell her to take her time. Maybe she hated herself for being so weak, but he wouldn't. Izuku was always smarter than her, no reason to stop taking his advice now.

He would wait for her.

Until the day that she could walk up to her monster, tell it that she wasn't afraid, and walk through its threshold.

Mina placed her hand on the door that lead outside her apartment. "I'm not afraid of you," She whispered.

But she was desperately afraid to see what was waiting beyond it.


End file.
